You will turn again in your Bibles this time to the book of Numbers in the Old Testament, Numbers chapter 6, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Numbers chapter 6, and we'll be just looking at a short passage, verses 22 through What is sometimes called the Aaronic benediction, that benediction that was given for Aaron to use. Numbers chapter six, I'm reading from the New International Version. Verse 22, the Lord said to Moses, Tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. So they will put my name on the Israelites. and I will bless them. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. What does God want us to think about as we leave his house of worship? Regardless of what the sermon is about, Regardless of what God does in your mind and heart on any given Sunday, what does he want you to be thinking as you leave church? Regardless of what you heard and what God did, perhaps he would convict you of some sin or comfort you in your pain and your helplessness or encourage you to press on or give you a burden to minister to a brother or a sister that is in need, or to open up your mind to see some ministry that you could be involved in in our community. Regardless of what God does in your heart, what does he want you to think as you leave church on Sunday? These instructions to Moses and Aaron were given after the construction of the tabernacle. This was to be their house of worship, the tabernacle, a tent that was set up and this is where people would come and they would meet with God and they would worship God. And these instructions that we just read are given prior to their setting out into the wilderness on their way to the promised land. This was to be a part of their life. They would set up the tabernacle, they would gather to hear God's word, They would offer sacrifice, they would receive the assurance of sins that are forgiven, and then they would receive the Lord's benediction. Obviously, this is what God wanted his Old Testament people to think about and to hear as they left the tabernacle and they turned and began to set foot on their way through the wilderness. And this is what God wants you to think. It's what God wants you to hear, to believe, and to take with you. God's own word of blessing. A benediction is not a prayer. It's not a doxology that's addressed to God. It's not a charge addressed to people urging them to try harder or to somehow live life that is worthy of their calling. It's not even a promise of what God will do for you. It is a word of God's grace about who God is for you right now. It's a word to be received and to be believed and then enjoyed as you live out the reality of what God says to you. A couple of introductory thoughts. The benediction is to be audible. You're supposed to hear it. It's spoken so you can hear it. Verse 22, the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them. It's to be visible. That is the hands of the minister are to be raised. Now that's not stated in this text. But Leviticus 9.22 shows us that at the conclusion of their worship, Aaron was to lift his hands toward the people and bless them. Luke 24, the passage that we just read, just before Jesus ascends into heaven, he lifts his hands toward the people and he blesses them. And many scholars believe that it is this Aaronic blessing that God gives to his, that Jesus gives to his disciples. as he is ascending into heaven. God wants you to see and to hear the blessing that he has for you. The benediction is to be authoritative. That is, one who is appointed by God is to give that benediction. Verse 27. In the Hebrew, this first person pronoun I is emphatic. So they will put my name on the Israelites and God says, I will bless them. It's not Moses. It's not Aaron. It's not the Levites. It's not John Olson. It is God who blesses his people. But he does that through Moses. He does that through Aaron, the Levites, and John Olson. The benediction is to be biblical. God's blessing is to be what God says to his people. It's not what I want to say or somebody else wants to say or what you may have read online somewhere. Well, this sounds good. I think I'll end the service with a little poem here. It's to be what God says, the words of scripture. We have this benediction, and then we have a number of benedictions in the New Testament that are frequently used in Christian churches. And then the benediction is to be received. It's to be heard with the ear, see it with your eyes, you receive it in your heart, you believe it, and then you enjoy the reality of it in your life. Now what is this blessing that we're talking about? God blesses his people. What is the blessing? What is it that God has for us. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. It's a Trinitarian blessing. What is most prominent as we hear these words or as we read them in our Bibles is this threefold repetition of the covenant name of God, Lord, all capital letters in your English translation, which is the translator's clue to you that we're talking about Yahweh. This is God's personal covenant name. It's mentioned three times. The Lord bless you. The Lord make his face shine on you. The Lord turned his. face toward you. It's no accident that it's said three times. What remained somewhat mysterious to those living in the Old Testament has now become crystal clear for us since the coming of Jesus. There is but one blessing, but there are three very clearly defined statements in this blessing. There is but one God, but this one God exists in three persons. And so this covenant blessing is a blessing of the triune God. The Father is Lord, maker of heaven and earth, but we now know that Jesus Christ is Lord. Romans chapter 10 is one clear place where we see this being assumed from the Old Testament. Paul is writing to the Romans, Romans chapter 10, and beginning at verse 9, Paul says, if you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and Paul is saying this knowing full well that this is the word that is used throughout the Greek Old Testament for Yahweh, if you confess that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As scripture says, anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. The same Lord is Lord of all. and richly blesses all who call on him, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jesus is Lord. We also learn in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit is Lord. Second Corinthians chapter three. Again, a very clear statement from Paul. 2 Corinthians 3, beginning at verse 17, now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. And this is the God who blesses us. It's a Trinitarian blessing. It's a dynamic blessing. That means that dynamic in the sense that there is movement in this blessing. God is a person. who's living and active, and he is moving towards his people. And he comes down, he moves and draws near to bless his people. Within each of these three statements of this blessing in numbers, we see that there are two parts. I know we're talking about a lot of numbers again here. Three statements, there's two parts to each statement. Each statement begins by describing God's movement toward us. He blesses us. He makes His face to shine upon us. He turns toward us. He's drawing near to His people. And then each statement ends by describing what God does for us. He keeps us. He's gracious to us. He gives us peace. When God draws near to His people, He does something. to them, he changes them. The second part actually defines the meaning of the first part in each of these statements. Notice verse 24, the Lord bless you. Well, what is that blessing? I am being kept. I'm being sustained. The Lord bless you and keep you. Verse 25, the Lord make his face to shine on you. Well, what in the world does that mean, for God's face to shine upon me? The second part explains that. Moment by moment, I experience the grace of God. I'm under the smile of God. I'm receiving and experiencing that unmerited favor that comes from God. And then verse 26, the Lord turn his face toward you. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means he's not turning his face away from me. He's turning toward me and assuring me that everything is well. It's a Trinitarian blessing, dynamic blessing. It's also a corporate blessing. Aaron is instructed to bless the people. Verse 22, very clearly, this is what you're to say and you're to bless the Israelites, the congregation, It's the congregation of God's people who are assured of God's presence. It underscores the unity that we come together on Sundays, not just as a bunch of individuals that are sitting here thinking, what can I get out of this service? But we're coming together as the body of Christ, the covenant people of God. We come together, we sit together, we stand together, we listen together, we eat together. We are blessed together so that when together we leave and go out of those doors, we remember, we are to remember that we're part of the body of Christ. This is the church of Jesus Christ. We are God's covenant people. But it's still a personal blessing. Though it's pronounced to the people in the plural, This is how you are to bless the Israelites. The personal pronouns throughout the benediction are in the singular. The Lord bless you. The Lord make his face shine on you. The Lord turn his face toward you. The blessing is for you personally. It's for all of us as a congregation, but none of God's children get lost in the crowd. It's a blessing for each one. Now, finally, what is the content of this blessing? What is it exactly that we're going to get from God and that God wants us to think as we leave? First of all, we're being assured of the keeping power of God. The Lord bless you and what? Keep you. The blessing that God gives us in this benediction is the assurance that God will keep and sustain us all through life. No matter what you may face when you leave here. No matter how bad things may be at home, no matter how challenging or even threatening work or school may be tomorrow or this week, God keeps and sustains his people. Israel had just completed the tabernacle. They're getting ready to march to the promised land. What they need to know first and foremost is that God is with us. He's going to go with us. He's going to keep us. the dangers of daily life in the wilderness, the enemies that will try to do them harm, that hostile culture where they're going to find themselves living, the difficulties of living together as a people. Sometimes that's really hard. They need to know that God is with them and will keep them. We began our service reading Psalm 121. We read it in the King James Version at the beginning of our service. Every English translation fails to render the same word consistently all the way through. For some reason, they'd have to tweak the meaning of the word. I don't know why. They think it fits better in the context, or they just get tired of hearing the same word six times in a row in a very short psalm. Sometimes it's the word watch, sometimes it's the word protect, sometimes it is the word keep. But that's the word that is used, both in the Hebrew and in the Greek translation. They render it the same word. I lift up my eyes to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip. He who keeps, you will not slumber. Indeed, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord keeps you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep you as you come and go both now and forevermore. You kind of get the idea when you work through that Psalm, God's gonna be with me, he's gonna keep me, he's gonna watch over and protect me. The Lord bless you and keep you. That's what God wants you to be thinking as you leave this place. Second, we're being assured of the gracious smile of God. The Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you. What would make God frown? If God were to look down on what he made, his creation, and what he sees as things are not right, he sees sin. You can read Genesis, what is it, six? About the flood. If God looks down, if he looks at us and he sees that things are not right, If he sees our sin, that sin that is still clinging to us, what would make God smile? To see that things are right. Not that everybody's trying to do their best and trying harder and trying to get rid of the sin that they've got while they're doing their best, except their sincerity. God smiles when he looks and he says, things are just right. He doesn't see the sin. Even the sin that we know is there and still clings to us. You know, for him to look at us and see that our sins are gone, even the sins that we still see and we still struggle with, to know that he sees them as gone, as covered by the blood of the Lamb who takes away the sin. of the world. To look at us, as the Heidelberg Catechism says, as though we had never sinned or been a sinner. And so the blessing that we receive here is that we can know for sure that our sins are forgiven. God has saved us. God has accepted me fully, completely, in Christ, in the Beloved. and that he's pleased with us, and he smiles. It's hard for John Olson to smile. That's just part of my nature and who I am, and get wrapped up in what's going on. Somebody once told a visiting elder, you know, the elder said, is there anything that we could do around the church that would make things better? And he said, well, could you get John Olson to smile once? We feel God's smile when we leave his house with that full assurance that our sins are forgiven. When we walk out, that's what God wants us to think. As I leave, that God is smiling at me as though I had never sinned and never been a sinner. Fully accepted by him. Just one passage, Psalm 67. The psalmist is obviously thinking about this benediction. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. That is what brings God smiles when his people are saved and they enjoy that salvation and live in the light of it. Every Sunday, we're reminded that our sins are forgiven. that our sins are no longer on our account. They have been taken off of us and they have been placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ who bears them and takes them away, dies in our place. And so we know that God takes pleasure in us and that he's smiling at us. And then third, we're assured of the abiding peace of God. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you God does not roll his eyes when he thinks about you. Rather than turn his face away from us in disgust or in anger or in frustration, he turns his face fully toward us and gives us his peace, that sense that we're at peace with each other and there is this peace that flows from him into my life. Shalom, peace. The Hebrew word doesn't mean just the absence of turmoil or conflict, it means to be whole. to lack nothing, for everything to be right where it needs to be and to have everything that we need. The integration of all the loose ends. God is the center of your life and everything is working as it should. Everything is in harmony, true harmonic convergence. Like a beautiful, powerful symphony, Beethoven's fifth symphony. Every note in the right place and an orchestra that is playing every note perfectly. Everything doing exactly what it's designed to do. God causing all things to work together for his glory and for our good. God's peace to be whole, to be healthy. to be as God created us, to be recreated in the image of his son, Jesus Christ. And this peace that he gives will guard, it will keep our hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus. One last thought. We've seen that God is the author of these blessings. The personal pronoun is emphatic. I will bless them. And we've seen what the content of this blessing is, to be kept by God, this assurance that we're kept, that we're forgiven, that God is at work in our lives, putting all the pieces together just right, that we experience this peace that comes from God and contentment. But now note that in giving the benediction to God's people, God specifically says that his name is being put on his people. Verse 27, so they will put my name on the Israelites and I will bless them. Three times the name of the Lord is pronounced. The Lord bless you, the Lord make his face shine, the Lord turn his face. In this way, you will put the Lord's name on this people. Somebody buys a house, they get a piece of paper and what's on it? Their name, it's ownership. You buy a car, you get a title, you get a registration, what's on it? Your name. You go to school, you get your textbooks, you pay, what, $200 for each book. First thing that you do, write my name on this. You have children, you give them your name. They're yours. God puts his name. Yahweh, Lord, on His people, so that when we leave His house, we go knowing that we are His. And this is why He will keep us. This is why He smiles at us to assure us that our sins are forgiven. This is why He turns toward us. and looks full into our face to know that we will have everything that we need for life. We are his people. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this benediction, for this good word, for this word that is spoken by you to us. Simple words and words that we have probably heard so many times. By your grace, enable us to enter into the richness and the fullness of your gospel as it is contained here. Help us to live in the reality of this blessing, to lay hold of it by faith, to receive the benediction, to live in the goodness of it. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.